Arts & Crafts  / American Foursquare (Artistic)

Variants

Style Variants

The debate rages: is “foursquare” a house type or a true style? When you can narrow down a building phenomenon to a period of about 25 years, what’s the difference? There’s no mistaking these houses for earlier cube forms like the Georgian Manor or the Italian Villa.

ARTISTIC: Craftsman details were incorporated in the early wave, ca. 1900–1915: boxed posts, exposed rafter tails. (Some of these examples could be called “bungalow in a box.”)

PRAIRIE: Many Foursquares throughout the Midwest incorporated the “modern” motifs of the region: horizontal banding, porch with a slab roof, geometric ornament, and “Prairie” art glass after Frank Lloyd Wright.

CLASSIC: Houses like this might be called Free Classic: note the Palladian-style window and oval “cameo.” After 1915, most examples could be termed Colonial Revival.

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